Dice Exploder

Sam's Exit Interview with Em and Sera

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Socials Sam's short film Toothless, live today Em on Bluesky and Linktree Sam on Bluesky and itch Sera on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Traits (Pendragon) with Caleb Zane Huett

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Pendragon 6e, The House Edge Socials Caleb on Bluesky and Haunted Table Seraphina on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was hosted by Seraphina Garcia Ramirez, and edited by Em Acosta.

Rights (Dark Ages) with John Harper

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Dark Ages, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, Under Hollow Hills, 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars Socials John on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

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NPCs with Amanda P.

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Beyond the Pale, Tannic, Landmark, Hidden, Secret Socials Amanda P. on Bluesky and at Weird Wonder Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Thri-Kreen (Dark Sun) with Zedeck Siew

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Dark Sun, New Class: Really Good Dog, Lorn Song of the Bachelor, Nine Space Games, A Perfect Wife Socials Zedeck on Bluesky and at his blog Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Fallout (Liminal Horror) with Craig Shipman

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Liminal Horror, Heart, Blades in the Dark, Cairn Socials Craig on Bluesky and Linktree Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

De-Roling with Caro Murphy

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further reading Back Tower Runners on Kickstarter! DrachenFest Incantrix Productions Imagi-Ne'er-Do-Wells Socials Caro’s website Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

Our Lives in the Wood with Kendo Smith

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further reading Our Lives in the Wood episode 5 This Game Takes Place in Your Home Town Socials Kendo on Bluesky and the web Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Dice Exploder on Patreon Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

What Is There to Eat in Duskwall (Blades in the Dark) with Jeeyon Shim

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Note: the "What Is There to Eat in Duskwall" pages of Blades in the Dark were written by Andrew Shields. Further Reading Blades in the Dark by John Harper Socials Jeeyon on Patreon, Bluesky, and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

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Duty Stations (Night Witches) with Ash Kreider

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading The Watch 2e is on Kickstarter now Night Witches by Jason Morningstar Socials Ash on Bluesky Ash's website, including listings for their games and books Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

New Episodes Next Week + An Announcement

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

Deckbuilding (Signs of the Sojourner) with Lady Tabletop

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Signs of the Sojourner by Echo Dog Games Band-Aids & Bullet Holes by Sam, on Kickstarter now Slay the Spire 2 by Mega Crit Socials Lady Tabletop on itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

Minigames (Firebrands) with Viditya Voleti

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Further Reading Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands by Meguey & Vincent Baker The King Is Dead by Meguey & Vincent Baker Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern by Takuma Okada Socials Viditya on Bluesky and itch Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.

John Wick (2014) and Genre Emulation with Sam Roberts

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com My new game Band-Aids & Bullet Holes is still on Kickstarter! Check it out today. In honor of BABH, this month on Dice Exploder I'm covering mechanics from other games that inspired it. In keeping with this show's increasingly loose definition of "mechanic," today I'm joined by Sam Roberts (Escape from Dino Island) to tackle one of this game's greatest influences: the 2014 Keanu Reeves movie John Wick. The first half of this ep is basically a movie podcast. We go deep on what makes John Wick tick (in brief: the first 30 minutes). But the back half we get into the extremely popular concept within indie rpgs of genre emulation: making games that evoke another piece of media or genre of media. What makes genre emulation work? What do we think most people get wrong when they attempt to do it? And is it even a worthy goal? Further Reading Back Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter now! John Wick (2014) Escape from Dino Island by Sam Roberts and Sam Tung Socials Sam Roberts on Bluesky Sam Dunnewold on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta

Character Nonmonogamy (Space Post) with Sidney Icarus

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Today is the launch of Band-Aids & Bullet Holes, my melodramatic action game of bloody revenge. It's a one shot, capsule game, box set, deckbuilder rpg. Check it out. In honor of BABH, this month on Dice Exploder I'm covering mechanics from other games that inspired it, starting today with the idea of character nonmonogamy. Traditionally in rpgs each player gets one main character. This is often true regardless of whether or not there's a GM: certain characters "belong" to each player. Not so in Band-Aids & Bullet Holes. But what does that look like? And what does it do to play? There's a lot of games that have played with other models, but to kick things off today we're digging into how it works in Jason Morningstar's Space Post, a game about delivering the mail in space, where main postman and space ship characters are passed around between players. And to do that I'm joined by Sidney Icarus, game design smarty, designer of Decaying Orbit, and former host of The Hard Move aka the podcast whose format I stole for Dice Exploder. Come on, let's get into it... Further Reading Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter Space Post by Jason Morningstar Bluebeard's Bride Band of Blades Everyone Is John Ars Magica Socials Sidney’s website, YouTube channel, and Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta

Calling Cards (Band-Aids & Bullet Holes) with Lady Tabletop and Seraphina

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com My first stand-alone print game, Band-Aids & Bullet Holes, goes live on Kickstarter next week on May 5th. I have a lot to say about it, and I'm gonna say a lot of it: May's going to be all episodes about mechanics from other people's games that inspired me in this design. Today I wanted to talk about Band-Aids & Bullet Holes straight up, but I didn't want you to just take it from me all the stuff I love about it, so I'm handing the show over once again to Lady Tabletop and Seraphina Garcia Ramirez. They're gonna tell you about Band-Aids & Bullet Holes through its core mechanic: take a marker, sharpie your character's core traits onto playing cards, then shuffle those up and flip them at each other, high card wins. As Sera says, somehow adding flavor to the classic card game War makes it so much better... Further Reading Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter Socials Seraphina on Bluesky and itch Lady Tabletop on Tumblr and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta

Keys (Lady Blackbird) with Whitney Delaglio

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com I love pregens! But why do I love pregens? I dug into this a bunch on an episode last year with Aaron Lim about the characters in Last Train to Bremen: I love being given a clear goal and baseline temperament when I sit down to play so I can get into drama as fast as possible. But the game Lady Blackbird goes a step further. Each character has "Keys" which lay out not just character traits and goals, but the central dramatic questions and stakes each character's arc is likely to concern itself with. And that, more than anything else, is probably what I want from my pregens. Whitney Delaglio joins me to talk about Lady Blackbird's Keys (originally from The Shadow of Yesterday by Clinton R. Nixon). She's got her own game coming to Backerkit next month - The Old, The Cold, The Bold - which iterates on Keys. So today we get into not just how they work but how you can make them work for you. Further Reading Lady Blackbird by John Harper The Shadow of Yesterday by Clinton R. Nixon The Old, The Cold, The Bold by Whitney Delaglio - second edition on Backerkit soon! Socials Whitney on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

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Weak, Strong, and Regular Moves (Dream Askew / Dream Apart) with Austin Walker

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Austin Walker's new game Realis is on Kickstarter now, and it's been making splashes in the indie rpg scene since last year when the ashcan came out. The game's core mechanic, Sentences, feels like the exact kind of mechanic I love covering on this show. But where did it come from? I asked Austin to come talk to me about it and bring one of his influences, and he came back with another diceless, GM-less resolution mechanic: the token economy of weak, strong, and regular moves from Dream Askew / Dream Apart. So today we're completing Dice Exploder's accidental Dream Askew / Dream Apart trilogy (paired with the episodes on lures and setting elements from the past couple months) and then digging into what makes this system work and what Realis learned from it. Further Reading Realis is on Kickstarter now! Follow Sam’s game Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter! Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum Socials Austin on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta

The Awards 2024 with Nico MacDougall

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com Follow Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter! The Awards are back! The rpg awards show with a bent towards indie games and the guaranteed worst SEO of all time is back for another around, and the current steward of The Awards - Nico MacDougall - is back on the show this week to talk through some of our favorite mechanics from the last batch of winners. If you want to get involved in The Awards, you can apply to be a judge through the end of April and you can submit your games during the month of May! This year's Awards will cover games published between June 1, 2024 and May 31, 2025. Further Reading The Awards 2026 - apply to be a judge today! Cloud Empress by Watt Border Riding by Stout Stoat Press This Maze Will Be Big Enough To Call Home Someday by Anna Anne Anthropy Stirring the Hornet's Nest at Het Thamsya by Munkao Socials Nico on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.

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Lures (Heaven in the Dust) with Barclay Travis and Bee Alexander

Transcripts are available at diceexploder.com Bee and Barclay are the hosts of Tabletop Book Club, a podcast that is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a show with such fun energy, and of course good design talk. Because Barclay has a new belonging outside belonging game that's just come out - Begin Again, check the link below - today I'm talking with them about lures, maybe my favorite part of the belonging outside belonging engine, and specifically how they're implemented in Heave in the Dust... Further Reading Heaven in the Dust by Luke Jordan Begin Again by Barclay Travis Dream Askew / Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum Socials Tabletop Book Club, Bee, and Barclay on Bluesky Sam on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Our logo was designed by sporgory, our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey, and our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer. Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey. This episode was edited by Em Acosta.